Lack of timeliness can be the death of a blog. But whatever. If you’re still reading, you’re a die-hard, so you’ll put up with it, I hope. ;-)
Howard Dean’s references a couple weeks back to the Republican Party as a “white Christian party” caused reactions ranging from outrage on the right to mild embarrassment at center-left to cheerleading on the far left. I’m a bit irritated with it, not least because if you swap in any other ethnicity or religion into his comments, he’d be hounded out of political life.
It’s really symptomatic of a bigger problem, though, and one I expected when Dean was chosen to head the Democratic National Committee. His reputation as a loose cannon and presidential backing by far-left groups like MoveOn.org pointed to an event like this, and to some extent the reaction.
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27 June 2005
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/ Tags: politics
I’ve got a few quick thoughts on the Virginia Republican primary for Lieutenant Governor, where state Sen. Bill Bolling from Hanover (suburban Richmond) put a significant hurting on the chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, Sean Connaughton.
Despite significant endorsements on Connaughton’s side from downstate politicians, Bolling absolutely slaughtered him in every Congressional district outside the Northern Virginia commuting zone. Bolling ran an effective negative campaign, capitalizing on the traditional downstate image of Northern Virginia as a liberal haven.
The reason this race was important is that if the Republicans retake the top two spots in the state (which seems likely, with the Dems running liberal LtGov and former Richmond mayor Tim Kaine), the sitting LtGov will be the prohibitive frontrunner for the 2009 gubernatorial nomination. Meanwhile, Connaughton’s defeat leaves no one with Northern Virginia ties on the state-level party escalator, at a time when Fairfax County has begun trending majority-blue for the first time.
Transportation makes this area lean toward slightly higher spending across the board; Republican or Democrat, you simply can’t get elected up here without trying to address traffic concerns, whether it be by road or rail. Anti-spending conservative ideologues may give the statewide party warm fuzzies, but they need our votes to win. Those votes get less and less likely to go Republican the longer the state party avoids realistically addressing NoVA issues, and running a moderate with regional credibility out of the party lineup is a bad sign.
15 June 2005
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/ Tags: politics, nova
Earlier this week, Eric McErlain highlighted several proposed NHL rules changes being tried this week at a “research camp” for undrafted free agents in Toronto. He noted first that per New York Islanders GM Mike Milbury, a game-ending shootout is almost guaranteed to be in place for next season, and wondered about its impact on the NHL’s diehard fans.
Eric noted correctly that the diehards have sustained the sport through a decade of stifling, boring hockey. He suspects they’ll be needed when and if the league ever revives itself, but fears that they’ll bail out on hockey if substantive changes are made — including the shootout.
My question is simple: what diehards?
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9 June 2005
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/ Tags: hockey